Quid Pro Quo
by AdieBishop
Summary: Set after Hannibal.  Clarice Starling, now no longer with the FBI, must chase the elusive doctor once more, but who will catch who?
1. Let Me Run

**Quid Pro Quo (clean version)**

**Let Me Run**

The stitches were sewn meticulously as a bright beam from the small penlight cast shadows along the sterile table. A bead of sweat dropped onto the skin and was left there in its place, unmoving. After a few minutes, the penlight was turned off and a rustling of clothes could be heard in the darkness. In another room, a cozy fire burned in a large stone fireplace. A decanter was opened, a drink poured, and the figure took a place in the large velvet chair by the fire. The fire's reflection flickered in the large set of brown eyes, and as they closed, the figure exhaled, as if in pain, but not physically. The eyes opened again and gazed into the fire.

Clarice Starling shifted her weight from her left shoulder and stared at the television blankly. She'd heard of the news segments highlighting "Special Agent Starling" for years, and watching the segments highlighting "_Ex_-Special Agent Starling" had become a mundane way to pass the time in the afternoons. She pondered over what Dr. Lecter was doing at this very moment, if he, too, was watching the news programs, and she shuddered at the thought of his icy eyes being fixated on anything.

She'd met him ten years ago, on an "interesting errand," and he'd ultimately escaped his maximum security holding and had managed to evade the police and the FBI during the following years. Then, after ten years he'd come back into her life, only to escape again, this time costing her everything she held dear, and she wondered if he realized that he was to blame for this. Of course he does, she thought, but does he feel guilt? She thought for a moment and realized that he did seem to have feelings, vague as they may be; however, but they were there at times. She'd saved his life, only to keep him from death in order to apprehend him for his crimes; he'd saved her life in turn, but why? Why did he risk his own life to save hers, to carry her from danger on bare feet, and then treat her wounds? Did he want something from her? If so, why had he never let it be known?

"_Quid Pro Quo…Yes or No…Clarice…"_

It seemed he only wanted personal information, facts, from her, but why? Did imprisonment for eight years in the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane under the cruel thumb of Dr. Chilton make him vulnerable to visitors? No, that couldn't be it: he'd never talked to any of FBI Section Chief Crawford's men before. Had it been the fact that she was a woman? Had the relief of seeing and smelling a woman after all those years made him susceptible to conversation? Clarice doubted it. It hadn't been in Dr. Lecter's nature to be unkind or discourteous to her in any way whatsoever; he'd never once made any sexual advances toward her.

At this thought, Clarice shuddered as the memory of Miggs

"_Multiple Miggs in the cell next door…"_

throwing his semen on her

"_I can smell your cunt," _he hissed.

played itself back in her mind. She remembered the phone call from Crawford saying that Miggs was dead, and the near satisfaction in Lecter's voice and manner concerning Miggs' death on her next visit, and she could almost smell the odors of the hospital ward.

She closed her eyes a moment and then opened them.

She stared into the distance, letting the television fade into an array of blurred colors, and wondered why she didn't hate Dr. Lecter. In her childhood, her father had been a police officer, which had first sparked her interest in the field of law. She'd gone to the University of Virginia where she'd graduated with honors, having a double major in psychology and criminology, and then went on to the FBI training academy, where she'd been a student and got the assignment of speaking with the infamous psychiatrist, Dr. Hannibal Lecter. She then continued her work and became an agent in the Behavioral Sciences Section of the Bureau, only to once again encounter Lecter, lose him, and in turn, be stripped of her job and all that she'd worked for. She figured that she should hate him…in fact, she wanted to hate him, _yearned _to hate him, but for some reason she could not. She despised the fact that she couldn't ascertain why this was, but on some level, she decided that she probably didn't want to name it at all.

She let her eyes return their focus on the television a moment longer before switching it off.

A faint smell of L'Air du Temps made Clarice open her eyes. She rolled over slowly, careful not to put too much weight on her shoulder, and checked the time. She lay back in bed and breathed in deeply to find the scent gone. Lecter's long ago, three-minute psychoanalysis of her life had not been far from the truth, and in anger, she'd thrown out her bottles of L'Air du Temps to ease her mind. She felt, after that, that she had a form of control over her life, her private things not so obvious to the trained eye, and she was grateful in a way.

She sat up in bed and yawned, thinking that she was late for something. She paused a moment and then remembered that she no longer worked as an agent, and in fact, wasn't late for anything at all. Depressed at this fact, she lay back down into bed and stared up at the ceiling. On this morning, she found herself consciously upset with Dr. Lecter, and when she felt she could almost hate him, a pang of guilt echoed through her. Angry at this fact, she rose back up out of bed and went into her kitchen. She poured herself a cup of coffee, realizing that she now needed the vice to stay awake, even in the middle of the day, and glanced out the window. The neighborhood was still, everyone off to work and their lives, and Clarice was envious for a moment. She then put those thoughts out of her mind and went to get dressed.

She jogged on the sidewalk, and the distant, dapper voice of Dr. Lecter came to her once more: _"I came half way round the world to watch you run, Clarice. Now let_ _me run."_ As if willed by some unseen force, her feet moved faster, carrying her along, and she felt an anger that she hadn't felt in years. She jogged past the market, the drug store, through the park, and back around the block before she stopped to rest, and she unknowingly glanced behind her to be sure there were no shadows following her.


	2. Well hello, Clarice

"**Well hello, Clarice…"**

The line rang quietly. Five, six…nine…ten times. She answered breathlessly, and he knew she'd been out running. She always ran. To keep fit, yes, but now for something more.

"Hello?"

"Well hello, Clarice."

Silence.

"You know," he said confidently, as always, "you shouldn't hang your loss of status atop my head. I am, however, sorry to hear that you are no longer with the _proud_ _and prestigious_ FBI." A beat. "Tell me, how long did it take you to realize that I was right all along? You should've left eleven years ago, while you were just starting out. You could have saved yourself a lot of trouble." He paused. "I doubt, however, that you and I would have met under different circumstances, and therefore, I'm glad that you stayed on."

"Why are you boasting, Dr. Lecter?" Clarice said sharply. "You've always known you were right about everything."

He gave a small laugh.

"_What do you want?"_

"So how are you keeping yourself in these days following your unpleasantness?" he said, ignoring her question. "I hope well. I trust that we'll see one another soon, Clarice, as I've missed your company."

"How's the hand, Dr. Lecter?" Clarice retorted, wanting to sound angrier that she did.

Dr. Lecter bent his left wrist forwards and backwards as he spoke. "Doing fine, thank you, Clarice."

She wanted to slam the phone down, but didn't, and he knew this.

"Tell me, Clarice," he said more softly, "what do you do when you're alone, when your thoughts trail to something other than your pretentious hatred for me? Do you catch up on reading the books you always wanted to when you were a trainee in the bureau, but never had the time? Do you drink cheap wine until you fall asleep on the sofa, watching old re-runs on television as a ploy to feel like you're somewhat normal? Do you soak in a hot bath for hours until the water becomes cold and your skin wrinkles…" He breathed in deeply and added, "I can almost smell the Evyan, Clarice…"

She listened intently, captivated by the sound of his voice. It was amazing to her that someone so grotesque and horrible in some aspects of life could speak so melancholy and passionately about others.

"Does that excite you, Dr. Lecter?" Clarice asked blatantly.

"No. It pleases me, Clarice."

She sighed, feeling drained from the call, and asked, "What do you want?"

Lecter's voice became acrid and clear as he spoke his proposition.

"It is not necessarily a matter of want, Ex Special Agent Starling," he said professionally, "but a matter of stipulation. _Quid Pro Quo_, remember?" he added coolly. "You want something, I want something. What for what, Clarice?"

Clarice waited patiently for the next words.

"I want you to find me, Clarice."

"Isn't that obvious from your call, Dr. Lecter?" Clarice observed.

"You have the same intent as I do, Clarice. You want to find me, don't you? You want to be able to say that the lambs will never scream again, that you can sleep a full night, that there are no shadows in your path. You want to find me as much as I want you to find me, Clarice."

"_Quid Pro Quo_, Dr. Lecter?" Clarice asked, playing the game.

"If you succeed in finding and apprehending me, you will no doubt be reinstated as a Special Agent with the _FBI_," he said mockingly. "You will be redeemed, shall we say, of your sins, _Ex_ Special Agent Starling. And perhaps your lambs will be silenced forever."

She thought about the proposition, as it were, and imagined Dr. Lecter on the other end of the line, a smile of victory crossing his medium lips. They both knew that he had won, there was no sense in prolonging the answer.

"Alright."

"I'll make it easy for you, Clarice," Dr. Lecter said after a pause. "There are a series of drawings…if you're intelligent enough, you'll know when you've reached the last, if you reach that far. On each will be a clue of the next and so on. They'll ultimately lead you to me."

"Isn't that a little too easy, Dr. Lecter?"

She heard the smile in his voice.

"Things that we do not wish to see, Clarice, are never easy to be seen. 'Wounds heal and become scars, but scars grow with us,'" he said, a quote from King Stanislaus I.

"Ta-Ta, Clarice."


	3. Lambs Stop Screaming

**Lambs Stop Screaming**

Clarice, racking her brain over the quote Dr. Lecter had used, stared at the stack of books on the history of Poland from 1677 to 1766, and pulled a map out. Before she could look it over, however, her doorbell rang.

"Package for Clarice Starling," the postal worker said when Clarice opened the door.

She signed for the package and closed the door. She sat down on the sofa and checked the postmark to find that it had been mailed out from the post office down the street. She opened the long tube carefully and pulled out its contents.

The drawing was one she'd seen before…so long ago…when Dr. Lecter had been transferred to Brushy Mountain State Prison, Maximum Security, in Tennessee. He'd been given more freedom there, held in a large cage rather than behind glass, and he was given a cassette player, classical music, and books. He'd continued his drawings as well, and had drawn the picture shortly before escaping. It was done in pencil, and Clarice grimaced at her own likeness staring back at her. In the drawing, she looked peaceful, her arm around a lamb, and she sighed.

"'The things we remember best are those better forgotten,'---Baltasar Gracian," it read at the bottom. Underneath the drawing was the letter "H" for Hannibal.

Clarice turned onto left onto Wisconsin Avenue. In all her life, she never thought she'd return there. Of course, Hannibal Lecter knew this. For some reason unknown to her, he was intent on making her face her fears (if they could be called that), and despite this fact, she would do everything in her power to catch him.

She entered Maryland, and thought it funny that less than an hour ago, she had planned her day around cleaning her house. She smiled to herself as she turned onto Washington Memorial Pike.

It was after two-thirty in the morning when she'd settled into the hotel room, and although she was tired, she found that sleep did not welcome her. She stared out the small hotel room window at the stars outside and wondered where Dr. Lecter was, and if he, too, was perhaps looking up at the same stars. In an unexplainable way, this comforted Clarice, and she drifted into sleep, a faint sound of screams echoing through her mind.

The next day she drove through North Dakota, stopped to eat, and then continued on through Montana. A swell of regret overcame her as she drove along the familiar streets, and as night fell, an incessant coldness surrounded her. In an eerie way, she respected Dr. Lecter for making her go back to the place that had haunted her in her dreams, and in another way, she was grateful.

She turned from the main road onto a dirt road and thought as she continued on her way. She wondered where Dr. Lecter was now, if he was in the same place or if he was moving, and the thought of him following her, watching her, made chills run down her spine. She had agreed to his game of cat and mouse, and remembered his words, "No. It pleases me, Clarice." It truly had never been a matter of sexual excitement for Dr. Lecter: he simply seemed to be fulfilled by his thoughts of Clarice in private. He was intrigued, fascinated, with her, and Clarice never stopped wondering why. She wondered what his intentions where, after the game was played, and a half-frightened, half-calm feeling came over her.

Continuing on her path, Clarice turned left up the long driveway and drove up the hill towards where the barn had once been.

Clarice stood on the hill. She was forced back to the time of being ten years old, alone and afraid, and she didn't like it. The wind blew and she closed her eyes, and she thought she smelled the sticky, bitter smell of blood on the wind. She grimaced and opened her eyes, and when her cell phone rang, she jumped.

"Having fun, Clarice?" she heard when she answered.

"What is all this, Dr. Lecter?" she asked as she paced back and forth in the dark.

"You question me, Clarice, without offering anything in return. Quid pro quo, yes or no?"

She sighed angrily.

"Yes."

"As I told you once before, I think it would be quite something to know you in private life, Clarice." He paused, and then changed the subject. "You ran a long way, didn't you, Clarice, with Hannah, the heavy lamb? You can still smell it, can't you? The smell of the bitter, stomach turning blood in the barn; you get ill at the memory, don't you?"

Clarice swallowed. "Yes."

"This, Clarice, is where you have to face your past. You must come to terms with it. You must silence your lambs."

She scoffed. "Dr. Lecter, I'm beginning to think, now, that the only way I can do that is to catch you."

He laughed, a rasp in his voice. "That is incidental. You mustn't place false blame, Clarice. It won't do."

A beat. "Quid pro quo, Dr. Lecter. What does my 'coming to terms with my past' have to do with your apprehension?"

"When you've dealt with it, Clarice," he said sternly, "then, and _only then_, will you be free to live your life in consolation."

Clarice laughed. "I will always be wary of you, Dr. Lecter. Never will I see peace until you are back where you belong."

"Tell me, Clarice," Dr. Lecter said solemnly, "and don't lie, for I'll know." His voice quieted. "Will you stay with me in my cell and hold my hand?" He paused for a moment. "We could have some _fun_," he added brazenly.

Clarice shook her head in anger as she continued to pace.

"Do you honestly wish me back there, in a cage without a view…without a tree…for the rest of my life?" he said finally.

Silence, and Clarice stopped pacing. She wanted to say yes more than anything she'd ever wanted in her life, but it would have been a lie, and he would have known. He'd caught her off guard with his question, and she felt cornered. She was angry with herself for not being able to say yes when she so desperately wanted to, but she wasn't sure if the lie would find its way to cross her lips anyway.

"You know you don't really want that Clarice."

Her breathing heavy, and at a loss for words, Clarice hung up the phone. She then realized that with the barn having been torn down, she had no idea of where to look for the next drawing.

She pounded her fist on the steering wheel as she sped onto the main road. She had had enough of Dr. Lecter's mind games. Why the hell had she ever let him talk her into this? She was no longer an agent, so why did she care so much about catching him? What could she do even if she did? He'd cut off his own hand the last time she had tried, so what was the point?

Angry and confused, Clarice let her thoughts drift back to her seven months spent on the ranch. She'd loved riding the horses, although they were sick, and a part of her regretted that. Why was it that human beings felt they had to destroy ill things? She then remembered the night she had left. She'd been sound asleep until she heard the screaming. It had been so cold and so dark…and Hannah had been heavy…she wondered then if the farmer had killed the lamb on purpose, just for spite. It would have been slaughtered, yes, but did he feel a morbid sense of satisfaction when he'd killed Hannah, simply because Clarice had tried to save him and had failed? She had stopped to rest, and that's when she saw the lights: bright blue and red flashing lights. Under different circumstances, they might have been rather pleasant, lighting the darkness the way they had.

"Shit House Mouse!" Clarice exclaimed suddenly. She made a u-turn in the road and headed back toward the ranch, now aware of the next drawing's whereabouts.

She crossed the old fence carefully and pulled a flashlight from her pocket. She looked around, and when she saw the fresh dirt a few feet in front of her she smiled. She knelt down and began digging, and it wasn't long before she found it. She removed the painting from its plastic casing and shone the light on it.

It was painted in acrylics, in bold colors, and showed a figure inside of a cage. It held its arms out toward another figure, a woman, who stood out of reach with her back turned away from the cage. At the bottom it read: "I'm waiting for you, Clarice. H."

She sat down and stared at the painting. There was no clue this time. She rolled the painting up and returned it to its casing and stood up. Holding her breath to keep the imaginary scents away, Clarice went back to her car.


	4. End of the Game

**End of the Game**

"_It is a pleasantry to watch you sleep."_

Clarice jumped and opened her eyes. She rose up out of bed and looked around her to find the motel room empty. She lay back in bed and closed her eyes, and vision of Dr. Lecter reading came to mind. He was sitting quietly, reading, at the Brushy Mountain State Prison…in his _cage_.

In the last twenty-four hours, Clarice had driven through Wyoming, South Dakota, Iowa, Missouri, and Arkansas, and she was tired. She figured she'd reach Memphis around one fifteen or so, and she could catch a few hours sleep before heading to Brushy Mountain in the morning.

The cage that had once occupied Dr. Hannibal Lecter was now located in the basement of the prison, amidst the mildew and the rats, and it wasn't a surprise when Clarice was told she'd have to go it alone.

She entered the place carefully, shining her small flashlight around the room. The cage was empty and was showing signs of rust, and Clarice scoffed. She wondered why she'd come here. There didn't seem to be any evidence of what she was searching for, so why this place? Why the cage?

After searching a while to no avail, Clarice headed back upstairs to speak with the officer at the front desk.

"All of his things were sent back to the Baltimore Hospital," the fat officer said. "Since that doctor…Dr. Chilton…got killed, I don't know where they would be. You'll have to check with them."

Clarice shook her head. She was beginning to tire of this cat and mouse game.

She sipped her coffee and picked at her breakfast as she thought. So many things had been sold, it was hard to tell what, if anything, was left, and where it would be. She wondered how Dr. Lecter had managed to get his drawings back to scatter them for her to find, and a thought occurred to her: Barney might still work in Baltimore.

"Yes, Barney Matthews."

The line buzzed softly as Clarice continued to wait.

"I'm sorry, ma'am," the secretary said, "but I have no record of a Barney Matthews."

"Thank you," Clarice said as she hung up the phone.

She stared blankly at the page in front of her and thought. Barney had left the United States, so where could Dr. Lecter have gotten his drawings?

"_You could always say it was me…"_

Clarice smiled to herself and the phone rang. She knew immediately who it was and found it odd that he could somehow read her mind.

"Hello, Clarice. I hope you're not too disappointed with me, as I had to let you ascertain things on your own."

"Where is Cordell, Dr. Lecter?" Clarice asked blatantly.

A pause, and she knew he was smiling.

"In my agreements with Cordell, Clarice, I cannot disclose his whereabouts to you; however," he said with a pause, "congratulations on that aspect of your discovery. I should inform you that Cordell's services are no longer needed, as your search for him would for him would prove to be rather daunting."

Clarice scoffed as she spoke.

"Where is the next painting?"

"You've confronted your past, Clarice," Hannibal said coolly, "but the road does not end there, does it?"

A beat, and then, "Ta-Ta, Clarice," and the line rang off.

It came to her in a dream that night, and when she awoke in a cold sweat she knew that there was only one more painting to find. She looked over at the clock on the nightstand table and saw that it was two o'clock. Without hesitation she was up and out of bed, thumbing through the phone book. She jotted the number of the airline on a scrap of paper, closed the book, and then lay down. She knew that sleep would not find her again.

"If anybody finds out I let you in here, I'm out of a job," the heavyset guard said as he unlocked the door.

"I know, and I appreciate this, Jake, I really do."

A few moments later she was inside her old office in the basement of the prestigious FBI basement. She saw it immediately, collected it, and left as quietly as she had arrived. She boarded the plane without even opening the package, knowing ahead of time where it would lead her.

The final painting, as she had expected, was the one she'd seen so long ago in Dr. Lecter's cell, of such vivid detail…

When she stepped off the plane into Venice she could feel his presence all around her, and she didn't like it. She wandered through the crowd, looking behind her constantly, and she hailed a cab as quickly as she could.

"Just go," Clarice told the driver as her cell phone rang.

"Listen very carefully, Clarice, and repeat these directions to the driver…"


	5. Confrontation

**Confrontation**

The cathedral was large, empty, and cold, and Clarice didn't like the look of it. Of course it would have to be a desolate place, she'd known, but why this place?

His voice interrupted her thoughts, causing her to jump.

"You look lovely, Clarice, although I must say I've seen you look much better. Could it be that life without your glorious FBI is too stressful for you?"

He walked from behind a large stone pillar, looking very well himself, and he stopped about twenty feet across from her.

"Tell me, do you miss it? The _F-B-I_, I mean? After everything they've done to you, it surprises me that you still hold them in such high regards."

Clarice cleared her throat. "What is all this, Dr. Lecter? What do you want from me?"

He smiled, and Clarice shivered.

He walked toward her slowly, his hands casually behind his back, and Clarice stood unwavering.

He stopped only when he was unbearably close to her, close enough to feel her breath on his lips, and she stared at him coldly.

"_What do you want_?" she repeated more forcefully.

Without saying anything, Hannibal pressed his mouth to hers, forcing his tongue inside her mouth, and Clarice stumbled. He pulled her to him so that she couldn't move, and after a few minutes more released her.

"Why ask questions you know the answers to, Clarice?" he asked finally.

Clarice stood up straight and took a step back. Without saying anything she spit in his face, and he smiled. He then licked it from his face with such giddiness that it made one think of a young schoolboy at Christmastime, and Clarice grimaced.

"I sometimes wonder what you'd do without me, Clarice," Hannibal said quietly. "Don't you realize that you'd be lost if you weren't chasing after me?"

Clarice looked at him unbelievingly.

"Here we are, just you and I. You know my whereabouts clearly, as you've known all along, and yet you've done nothing to incarcerate me. Why is that? Don't you want your title reinstated, _Ex_-Special Agent Starling?"

She was silent as she looked at him, and she realized that he was right, just as he'd always been…but why? What was it that kept her from imprisoning him?

"Is it the fact that you couldn't sleep at night, knowing that I was behind bars, my freedom kept from me for the rest of my life? Or is it the fact that you can't sleep at night because although I am free, I still do not have my freedom…the freedom that, although you don't wish to admit, you so desperately want me to acquire?"

"What the hell are you talking about, Dr. Lecter?" Clarice said, half yelling.

Hannibal smiled at her again, thinking it humorous that she still used formalities. He was then quiet, standing still across from her, and when he closed his eyes and tilted his head back, Clarice heaved toward him. In one swift move, Hannibal caught her by the wrist and grabbed the handcuffs. Holding her hands tightly behind her back, he pushed her against the stone pillar.

"Now now, Clarice," he said as he handcuffed her, "we remember too well what happened before, don't we?"

Clarice struggled but to no avail, and once Hannibal had the handcuffs secured, released her.

"Well then…" he said with a sigh. "What do you think of Venice? Beautiful, isn't it? I myself quite enjoy the twilights here…so relaxing and peaceful…"

Clarice looked around her and noticed a long hallway a few feet away.

"Oh yes, that leads to the courtyard," Hannibal said coolly. "Remarkable courtyard," he added, "lots of _mazes_ to play in…"

Clarice shook her head. She'd had enough.

"WHAT DO YOU WANT!" she screamed.

Hannibal walked towards her quickly, his eyes ablaze. "You silly, _silly_ girl," he hissed. "What do you think I want, Clarice? _Hmmm_?"

She glared at him, and he kissed her so forcefully that the back of her head hit the pillar.

He broke the kiss and then stared at her. "You are an exquisite woman, Clarice Starling. I must say that I do love you. A life without you in it," he added, "would be very unsatisfactory for me." He then grabbed her hair at the scalp and jerked her head back, and she stared up at the raised ceiling, seemingly oblivious to the pain. Hannibal licked her neck, up to her mouth, and lightly bit her bottom lip. He licked down the side of her neck, and bit her shoulder through her t-shirt, and Clarice winced.

He bit down harder, and Clarice inhaled sharply. "Dr. Lecter…"

He bit down even harder then…


End file.
